Bounty hunter Samus Aran explores planet SR388 where she is attacked by an X-parasite. The Galactic Federation cure her with a vaccine from Metroid cells which gives her the ability to absorb the X-parasites but weak to cold.
Samus learns that the X parasites can replicate their hosts' physical appearances and now there’s a Samus clone in the area (known as SA-X). This version of Samus is fully upgraded with Ice beam so must be avoided when encountered.
Samus explores the facility, guided by a computer AI that she names Adam (after her former commanding officer). The story is told via text and some still-image cut-scenes.
Compared to the likes of Super Metroid, the navigation is much more linear. The world is split up into distinct areas which is traditional for the series but they are all accessed via a central hub, with elevators taking you to each one. You always enter and exit at the same place, so the navigation is mainly fairly circular. The entrance has 3 rooms in succession; Save Room, Navigation Room, Recharge Room. I’ve no idea why they decided to do this - why can’t it just be one room? The navigation room is where you interact with Adam, and will often tell you the exact room you need to reach next. You can see the majority of rooms on the map, but there are some hidden areas too.
The combat is quite difficult since Samus’ health drains fast. The X-parasites that are left behind don’t recover much health (some recover missiles). The X-parasites flee shortly after appearing and can respawn creatures or re-appear as stronger ones; so you need to collect them quickly. Save rooms don’t heal you either which can make some sections very frustrating when you are stuck on low health.
There’s quite a few challenging bosses throughout the game, although the final boss is rather dull. When you defeat the bosses, then you have to defeat the X-Parasite that is released. Defeating this restores a new power which allows you to access new areas.
Super Metroid is a brilliant game but some sections could be frustrating when you were expected to uncover a hidden area. This was an aspect that was detrimental to the original game too. You would think they would eradicate this aspect; but this game is full of it. I don’t mind sections where certain tiles are damaged, giving you a good indication of a path. I don’t mind when you can see a room on the map and then have to look for a hidden entrance. However, there’s far too many occurrences where there are no clues but dropping a random power bomb will uncover these. After you acquire the power bomb, I just dropped them in every room to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. It slows the pace of the game down, and makes it feel tedious rather than being based on skill, or any observations.
There’s a few other odd aspects with the game design. There’s a couple of boss fights that only trigger when you approach clearly locked doors. There’s a few manoeuvres that aren’t explained and I learned by watching videos on Youtube.
It’s a watered-down Metroid experience compared to Super Metroid, and parts of it seemed a bit bland. There’s a bit more emphasis on the story, but the ending is a bit mediocre.